Former Corbyn adviser: Don’t glorify Churchill

Here we go. Last night Gary Oldman came away victorious at the Oscars – picking up the best actor gong for his depiction of Winston Churchill in the Darkest Hour. The film follows the attempts within government in 1940 to make a peace treaty with Hitler and Churchill’s refusal to do so. Only not everyone was cheered by the news of Oldman’s success. Jeremy Corbyn’s former adviser Steve Howell complains that Churchill had many dark hours and so he will ‘pass on any film glorifying a man who British voters rejected at the first opportunity’.

Setting aside the small issue of Churchill’s legacy (see what The Spectator said in 1965: ‘We live as free men, we speak as free men, we walk as free men because a man called Winston Churchill lived. Of no other man since time began can that be said. And, as we waited and prayed, there was nothing more to be said’), Mr S isn’t sure Howell’s criticism holds firm.